A24’s Backrooms transforms the viral internet horror phenomenon into a chilling cinematic experience that captures the dread of endless liminal spaces. In this review, we explore director Kane Parsons’ ambitious adaptation, its connections to Backrooms video games and analog horror, and why its haunting architecture proves more terrifying than any monster. Discover how Backrooms bridges internet culture, gaming, and modern horror while establishing Parsons as one of genre cinema’s most exciting new voices.

From Creepypasta to Cinema: How Backrooms Captures the Dread of the Games and the Original Lore

Backrooms Review: A24 Turns Internet Horror Into One of the Most Disturbing Films of the Year

There are few modern horror concepts as deceptively simple as The Backrooms.

A blurry image of a yellow office space posted online in 2019 somehow evolved into one of the internet’s most enduring pieces of collaborative horror fiction. From YouTube analog horror series and indie video games to sprawling fan wikis documenting hundreds of levels and entities, The Backrooms transformed from a single unsettling photograph into a full-blown mythology. The premise was elegant in its simplicity: if you accidentally “no-clip” out of reality like a glitch in a video game, you might find yourself trapped in an endless maze of fluorescent-lit rooms that stretch beyond human comprehension.

The obvious question was always whether this concept could sustain a feature-length film.

With A24’s Backrooms, director Kane Parsons not only answers that question, he delivers one of the most fascinating horror debuts in recent memory. The film is not merely an adaptation of an internet creepypasta. It is a translation of an entirely new form of digital storytelling into cinema. In the process, Parsons creates a horror experience that feels unlike almost anything else currently playing in theaters.

From Viral Video to Major Motion Picture

The story behind Backrooms is almost as remarkable as the film itself.

Parsons first gained attention through his Kane Pixels YouTube channel, where his analog horror interpretations of The Backrooms exploded across the internet. Using Blender, After Effects, and an extraordinary understanding of visual atmosphere, he created found-footage horror that felt simultaneously nostalgic and alien. The videos looked like forgotten VHS recordings recovered from some alternate timeline.

Hollywood quickly noticed.

A24, Atomic Monster, and several major production companies eventually partnered with Parsons, making him one of the youngest feature directors ever entrusted with a major studio-backed horror film. At only twenty years old, he has already accomplished something most filmmakers spend entire careers chasing: creating a genuinely original visual language that audiences instantly recognize.

The result is a film that feels refreshingly free from franchise fatigue. While countless modern horror films rely on established intellectual property, Backrooms emerged from internet culture itself. Its DNA comes from message boards, YouTube videos, gaming communities, and collaborative online storytelling.

That origin gives the film an unusual energy.

You can feel that it wasn’t reverse-engineered by committee.

The Horror of Architecture

The most impressive achievement of Backrooms is that it understands the fundamental truth of the source material.

The monster isn’t the creature.

The monster is the space.

Much of the film follows Clark, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, after he discovers an impossible network of rooms hidden beneath his struggling furniture store. What begins as curiosity quickly transforms into obsession as he ventures deeper into a world that appears to have no end.

The Backrooms themselves are astonishing.

Production designer Danny Vermette and Parsons reportedly built more than 30,000 square feet of physical sets to bring the labyrinth to life. Rather than relying entirely on CGI environments, the film surrounds viewers with tangible spaces that feel oppressively real. The result is a level of immersion that digital environments alone rarely achieve.

Yellow walls stretch endlessly into the distance.

Fluorescent lights hum overhead.

Office corridors lead nowhere.

Conference rooms appear disconnected from logic.

Entire sections of architecture seem assembled by something that has observed humanity but never truly understood it.

The Guardian perfectly described the film’s atmosphere as horror emerging from architecture itself. Watching Backrooms often feels like wandering through the abandoned memories of civilization. These aren’t haunted houses. They’re places that seem designed for people who never actually arrived.

The effect is deeply unsettling.

Almost everyone has experienced a moment in a deserted shopping mall, an empty office building, or a silent school hallway where something felt slightly wrong. Parsons takes that universal sensation and stretches it across an entire feature film.

Why the Film Works When Other Horror Movies Fail

Many horror films want to scare you.

Backrooms wants to disorient you.

That distinction matters.

Parsons understands that uncertainty is often more frightening than revelation. Rather than constantly explaining the mythology, he allows viewers to experience the same confusion as the characters. Rooms change unexpectedly. Distances become impossible to judge. Familiar spaces suddenly feel hostile.

The film frequently weaponizes repetition.

You begin noticing identical corners.

Identical hallways.

Identical ceiling panels.

The human brain naturally searches for patterns and landmarks. Backrooms systematically removes those anchors.

As a result, viewers experience something rare in modern horror: genuine spatial anxiety.

You stop worrying about what might be chasing the characters.

You start worrying whether escape is even possible.

That psychological shift is where the film becomes most effective.

Critics have praised the movie’s ability to create sustained dread through atmosphere rather than relying solely on jump scares. Even when very little appears to be happening, tension continues building because the environment itself feels fundamentally wrong.

Check out where it all started with the best Backrooms games available now!

The Best Backrooms Games to Play in 2026

A Love Letter to Backrooms Gaming Culture

As someone who has spent time exploring Backrooms games, one of the film’s greatest strengths is how well it understands gaming culture.

Games such as Escape the Backrooms, Inside the Backrooms, Backrooms: Escape Together, and numerous independent projects helped define what The Backrooms became for an entire generation of players. These games transformed liminal horror into an interactive experience built around exploration, navigation, puzzle-solving, and survival.

The film clearly understands that heritage.

Walking through the Backrooms often feels remarkably similar to playing a first-person horror game.

You constantly scan the environment.

You look for landmarks.

You wonder whether the hallway ahead leads somewhere meaningful or merely loops back into itself.

The concept of “no-clipping” remains central to the mythology, preserving one of the most fascinating aspects of the original creepypasta. The idea that reality itself can glitch like a broken video game remains uniquely unsettling because it merges digital logic with physical existence.

Interestingly, the film diverges from many of the games in one important respect.

The games frequently emphasize entities.

The movie emphasizes place.

While creatures and threats certainly exist within Backrooms lore, Parsons seems more interested in the existential horror of endless space. The result feels closer to the original creepypasta image than many modern interpretations.

That decision may disappoint viewers expecting nonstop monster encounters.

For longtime Backrooms fans, however, it feels authentic.

Kane Parsons Announces Himself as a Major Talent

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of Backrooms is what it suggests about Kane Parsons’ future.

This does not feel like a filmmaker imitating established horror directors.

It feels like a filmmaker developing his own voice.

The cinematography consistently favors wide-angle lenses that exaggerate scale and distort perspective. Hallways appear longer. Rooms feel larger. Human beings seem increasingly insignificant compared to their surroundings.

The editing similarly demonstrates unusual confidence.

Parsons understands when to linger.

He understands when to cut.

Most importantly, he understands that fear often emerges from anticipation rather than action.

The visual storytelling is remarkably mature for a debut feature. Several sequences communicate entire emotional states without relying heavily on dialogue. Instead, architecture, composition, lighting, and movement convey information that many filmmakers would attempt to explain verbally.

It is difficult to watch Backrooms without thinking about how young Parsons still is.

Most directors are still trying to break into the industry at his age.

Parsons has already created one of the most visually distinctive horror films of the decade.

Not Everything Works

That said, Backrooms is not flawless.

Some viewers will likely struggle with the pacing.

The film occasionally prioritizes atmosphere over momentum, creating stretches where narrative progression slows considerably. Those expecting a conventional horror structure may find themselves impatient.

Character development can also feel secondary to world-building.

While Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve deliver strong performances, the film is often more interested in exploring space than psychology. For some audiences, that imbalance may limit emotional investment.

There are also moments when the mythology threatens to become overly abstract.

Part of The Backrooms’ appeal lies in mystery, but mystery can sometimes drift into ambiguity. Some viewers will leave the theater fascinated. Others may leave wanting clearer answers.

Whether that is a flaw or a feature depends largely on personal taste.

Final Verdict

Backrooms succeeds because it understands something many adaptations miss.

It understands the feeling.

Rather than simply importing lore, entities, and recognizable iconography from the internet, Kane Parsons captures the underlying emotion that made The Backrooms resonate in the first place. The film understands the fear of becoming lost in a place that shouldn’t exist. It understands the unease of empty architecture. It understands the nightmare logic of spaces built according to rules we cannot comprehend.

As a horror film, it is frequently terrifying.

As a Backrooms adaptation, it feels remarkably faithful to the spirit of the source material.

As a bridge between internet culture, gaming culture, and traditional cinema, it represents something genuinely historic.

The success of Backrooms also signals a broader shift in entertainment. Stories no longer need to originate in Hollywood. Sometimes they emerge from message boards, YouTube channels, and gaming communities before finding their way to the big screen.

Years from now, audiences may remember Backrooms not simply because it was scary, but because it marked the moment internet-born horror truly arrived in mainstream cinema.

And like the endless yellow corridors at the heart of the film, that journey may only be beginning.

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The Best Backrooms Games to Play in 2026